Forget everything you’ve heard about needing a massive team, unlimited funding, and a sprawling office to build something big.
Three young Vanderbilt alumni who are co-founders of Aloa, a bootstrapped software agency and AI consultancy, will take the stage together to share their playbook for building a company that’s lasted longer than 90% of startups, achieved profitability from day one, and has served more than 250 clients.
The 2026 Chambers Family Entrepreneurship Lecture— The Rise of the Tiny Giant: How Small Teams Will Dominate the Next Era—is Thursday, March 26, at 4:10 p.m. in Stevenson Center 5326. A reception will follow the lecture.
“OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has a betting pool among tech CEOs for when the first one-person billion-dollar company will happen. He says it’s not if, it’s when, and we think he’s probably right,” said Chris Raroque, BA’18, the CEO and co-founder of Aloa.
After a brief stint at Google, Raroque bootstrapped Aloa with fellow Vanderbilt alums Bryan Lin, who graduated in 2018 with majors in engineering science, computer science, physics, and a minor in engineering management, and Dawei Li, BA’17 in economics. Raroque earned a bachelor’s degree in economics with minors in computer science and corporate strategy
Aloa got its start as an undergraduate passion project building apps for the Wond’ry, Vanderbilt’s innovation center, and local startups.
Lin, COO and co-founder, returned to Aloa after a stint as a technical salesforce consultant at Capgemini. He oversees client delivery and internal operations. Raroque said Lin turns promising ideas into finished products and builds the internal systems that let our small team punch above its weight.
Li is a co-founder and Head of Sales. Immediately after graduating in May 2017, Li took a risk and became the first Aloa team member to go full time, driving Lyft on the side. Within the first year, Li had secured enough revenue to bring the rest of the founding team on full time.
The Chambers Family Entrepreneurial Lectureship is a semi-annual series at the Vanderbilt University School of Engineering endowed by the Chambers Medical Foundation. It brings successful business leaders to campus to inspire entrepreneurial activity among students.